Book Review: Ecstasy In Darkness by Gena Showalter

Its interesting how reading a series out of order can show the growth of a writer. The Alien Huntress series was one of the first ones that Showalter put out there, but this book was published this past year. She has been slowly taking her time juggling several series and her growth shows.

The last book I didn't feel the characters. Neither of them seemed that real to me. This book has a huge jump in the interest. Every character has more character too them. The dialogue has a more natural feel and sound more like stuff I would say to my friends. Also the plot is way more interesting, I am much more intrigued by a race of disease ridden aliens trying to wipe us out. Well wipe out everyone, because they have to spread the disease to live. Which really seems like an interesting idea. I desperately want to know more about this but Showalter is making me work for it.

The main male for this book is Victor McKell who was a bad-ass vampire in the last book. After the vampire king found out he didn't kill Bride he got kicked out of the underground world. Seeing as this series goes with the whole alien thing, vampires are really aliens that made it to earth a long time before the other aliens came knocking.  Remember the disease aliens? Well they found out that Bride's blood stops the disease so they want to talk to McKell. So the alien investigation forces send Ava and Noelle to bring him in, and these two pretty much are the coolest girls ever. Ava is the lead in this book.

So Ava and McKell get the hots for each other and in the mean time they are trying to a) figure out more about vampires that live above ground and b) stop the queen of the disease aliens from destroying everything c) deal with the mating bond thing d) figure out what these magical door ways that follow McKell are about. The answers are the following. A) there are lots and they have to drain a human dry to go out in the sunlight. B) McKell's daddy has some neat stuff that kinda makes the mystery  less epic. C) They like it but Ava doesn't want to be a vampire just yet, well maybe. D) McKell's daddy comes from an alternate reality and has magic doorways.

Yeah that last bit comes in at the eleventh hour and just sorta ends the tension. I was horribly worried there for a while about the disease aliens and what was going to happen. I mean I was on the edge of my seat, and then daddy is like "Calm down, I got this!" and there goes the tension. The big bad evil woman is not so scary when the time traveling vampire just sends her away because he doesn't like that its pissing his son off.

On the other hand Ava and Noelle make me crazy happy. They have that trash talk to your best friend thing down. I loved it. Best friend trash talk is the best kind. They make it very realistic, although they take it a little too far at times. They suffer from serious ADD in a couple scenes. It sounds so much like my friends and I when we get in rants. I loves me some silly rants.

This book has convinced me that I need to go back and read the rest of the series.